Burn Down The Night (14 page)

Gail looks at the
girl in the back. Both are puzzled. Gail says, "Hey! What's so funny?"

Morrison crawls
up, bends over on the hood of the car, weak from laughter. "Pimps!" says Morrison.

"Adolf Hitler," I
add.

It sets us both
off again.

"They're just
really wasted," says Gail by way of explanation, looking really wasted herself.

Morrison slides to
the ground again, convulsed with laughter.

I have to help him
up and that kind of straightens me out a little.

We start climbing
into the car. Guess we are going to give them a ride home. What other choice we got? Morrison
gets into the back with his blond beach baby. Gail slides over behind the wheel, speaks to me,
pats the seat beside her.

"Get in, stud.
I'll drive."

I look at her,
look at Morrison in the back seat. Mor­rison's sprawled out like the King in Yellow, trying not
to laugh himself right into the grave.

"Oh, sure," I say,
dive in the car and crawl into the back seat with Jim and the blonde.

Gail turns around,
pissed off.

I avoid her eyes,
slump in the seat, looking out the window at nothing in particular.

Gail starts the
car up—guess I left the keys in the ignition. Car hasn't gone anywhere yet. Gail just sits there
glaring at me in the rearview mirror.

"How come you're
not sitting up here with me?" she asks me.

Morrison opens one
eye, leans forward with a confidential air. "Listen, he's horny for you and he's afraid he won't
be able to keep his hands off of you. He's afraid he'd grab you or something and maybe make you
wreck the car."

"Son of a bitch!"
I say and try to swing at Morrison, who ducks behind the blonde, dissolving into laughter again.
The glib bastard!

"You gotta be
kidding! Still horny!" She looks really shocked. "You're incredible! You was all over me last
night! Jesus! I never had it so many times in my life! It was like there was ten of
you!"

Gail has the
dangerous look of a convert who's just met God, personally. She gives me an affectionate look, a
loving look that makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck.

She says, "Honey,
I don't think we could make it even if you wanted to! We made it so many times last night I'm so
sore I can hardly move!"

Sandy leans
forward, pats Gail on the shoulder with a way-to-go gesture, says, "Far out!"

Morrison is
choking, red-faced, laughing his muffins off.

I hope the silly
son of a bitch swallows his tongue.

"Funny, Morrison!
Real fucking funny!" I tell him.

"Yeah," he
agrees.

"You're some
lover!" says Gail.

"Far out!" says
Sandy, staring off into space.

"It runs in his
family," says Morrison. "Everybody in his family is densely populated."

"Far out!" says
Sandy, communing with the car upholstery.

Gail gets the car
rolling, eyes occasionally straying back to me, visually drooling all over me.

Morrison tunes
out, eyes glazed. I settle back in the seat, half mad and half laughing. The blonde jammed in
between us is falling all over Morrison and he could care less. I sneak a feel, touch her
breasts, and she doesn't seem to mind.

She puts one arm
around my neck, feeling me mess with her chest, looks at me and says, "Far out!"

She's a terrific
conversationalist, dead from the neck up. I let go of her breasts, settle back in the seat, too
tired to be interested. Instead, I just lean back and pre­tend to be a corpse. Doesn't take much
pretending. I'm pretty banged up.

"It's a
nightmare," I say to no one in particular. No one seems to hear.

Gail makes a
couple of turns, and we're heading up Laurel Canyon, heading back toward North
Holly­wood.

"Where we going?"
I ask, not really caring.

"Back to my
house," says Gail.

"Terrific!" I
say.

"Far out!" says
Sandy.

Jim opens his
eyes, looks at her. "I think your record is scratched."

The car dips and
dives, swooping awkwardly up the curves of Laurel Canyon. Gail is driving like somebody who's had
too many downs. Like a snow-blind, epileptic kamikaze pilot, in other words. Trying to be in
every lane all at once and sometimes succeeding.

This isn't doing
my stomach any good. Also, I'm getting some kind of strange shot-in-the-guts sensation. I seem
vaguely to remember a certain white pill that.

Oh, shit! Feel my
stomach trying to bring some beer back up, so I open the window on my side and stick my head out.
The whole universe is shaking and baking me. My nose is full of clotted blood, I ache in a
thou­sand places, and oh, Jesus, my guts now feel like wild dogs are dancing around in there,
practicing hydrophobia on each other.

I try to hold it
all back but no way. I toss my cookies in one long monster stream. I give that side of the car a
better vomit paint job than Earl Sheib can do for $39.95.

Morrison is half
asleep and doesn't see it. The blonde is draped all over him, eyes closed in her own private
oblivion.

Only Gail is
really awake and she's not watching me. She's got her eyes fastened on the rearview mirror,
watching something behind us.

I am just about
falling out of the car, upchucking like the puking Sphinx Tuli Kupferberg used to sing
about.

On the positive
side, I retain maybe half of my stomach lining. But now I got the dry heaves, pumping long after
there's anything left to pump.

"Holy shit! You
dumb ass, get back in the car!" Gail's talking to me, all shook up. What's the big deal? Ain't
she never seen somebody blow their lunch before?

I'm done anyway,
so I pull my head back in the car, really worn out. Compared to the fun I've had today and
yesterday, World War One was a picnic sponsored by the Home for the Criminally Insane Glee
Club.

"Can't a guy have
a little fun outdoors once in a while?" I ask, of no one in particular. Then I hear this loud
noise. Where have I heard that noise before? A loud blaring noise. It's coming from behind us and
I turn and look out the back window.

Oh, yeah. Now I
know where I've heard that noise before.

"Oh, shit!"
Official bad news. We are about to sail off the edge of the known world and get eaten up by the
boys in blue. You know, sirens, nightsticks, guns and all that heavy social-consciousness
jazz.

There's this
patrol car with two cops in it right back there, siren blaring, lights flashing, just chewing up
our tail pipes (figuratively, since they are long gone).

Suddenly I am as
sober as Carrie Nation, only a whole lot more scared shitless than she ever was.

I punch Morrison
on the arm, hard. Morrison jerks awake with a start. Balls his fists at me, rubbing his arm.
Looks really pissed off.

"Hey, what the
fuck you trying—" he starts saying, then flashes on the siren song and turns and looks out the
back window.

"Oh, fuck!" he
moans, looking at the interior of the car. "We got dope, open booze and underage chicks in the
car! Our asses are grapes! We're gonna get enameled!"

If Morrison knew
what I knew, he wouldn't be so fucking optimistic.

"Fuck!" he says,
scrambling around frantically in the back seat, doing nothing but doing it very fast.

"Don't panic," I
caution him. "Just do what I do, don't question me. Just do what I do."

He ignores
me.

"Maybe your father
is a police commissioner?" he suggests, without too much hope.

"Far out!" says
Sandy, resurfacing from her own mental tar pit.

"I knew you'd say
that," says Morrison, pushing her off his shoulder. "You always seem to know the right thing to
say."

I push the blonde
forward, get her away from him so I can whisper something to him.

"Far out," she
says, bent over, staring at nothing.

In a whisper I
tell him, "When the car stops, open the door and run like hell!"

Morrison smiles.
"You better check your pants. I think you just shitted your brains away."

"Hey, I got a
special reason for running. Unless you want to shoot it out with them or are really hipped on ten
years in prison, my choice is the only choice."

Morrison has to
nod, knowing what I say is true but still not happy about it.

"The ladies
can—"

"Find their own
road to salvation," finishes Morrison. "We're psycho. We're both gonna get a warning shot in the
back of our heads!"

Gail slows the car
up, weaving all over the place, and begins to pull over to the side of the road.

I get my hands on
the door. "You going or staying? Me, I'm running like hell!"

Morrison runs his
hands through his hair, lifting it off his face, thinking it over. Gives me a penetrating stare,
trying to figure me, maybe. Hesitates, then abruptly pushes Sandy off of him, giving himself some
launching room. It's like pushing away a bag of Jell-O.

Totally zipped up,
the blond girl slides off the seat and falls on the floor, legs all tangled up, aiming at the
ceiling. She's got attractive pubic hair. She must have left her underwear and her jeans back at
the party, probably in some pervert's mouth. Anyway, she's a natural blonde all over.

She´s s dangling
upside down, eyes unfocused. She seems to take it all in stride. "Far out," she says.

Morrison gets his
hand on the door handle, pulls it down, unlocks the door and holds it flush with the door frame.
I notice what he's doing and do the same thing. A pretty good idea. Should speed up our takeoff.
We may need every inch.

"Far out!" says
Sandy, discovering her legs waving above her head.

"Who said the art
of conversation is dead?" I mutter.

"If we get the
shit shot out of us, I'm gonna come back and masturbate on your grave," says Morrison.

"I hope it gets
caught in your zipper."

Our car slows,
almost stopped. The patrol car slides in behind it, car doors banging wide open. They aren't even
going to wait until we come to a complete stop. Cops have already got us pegged as a bunch of
dope per­verts, sex fiends and armed necrophiliacs. Popping out of their car with drawn
guns.

"Oh, shit!" says
Morrison, seeing the guns. "Let's move!"

Our car is still
moving when we hit the doors and go flying out. We land running like hell.

As if we rehearsed
it, both of us zip past our car, cut across the same yard, and duck into the first alley we come
to. No time for either of us to look back to see what the cops are doing.

Never ran so
frigging fast in my whole frigging life. Every step expecting a warning shot in the back of the
head. Morrison and I edge up on the sound barrier. I'm pumping my arms so hard I rip the elbows
out of my shirt.

We hear the cops
yell and one of them must have put his gun up in the air—'cause we hear a shot but no bul­let
goes streaking past us. Maybe the only time a warn­ing shot by a L.A. cop was not fired directly
at somebody. We must have lucked out, got a couple of new recruits or something.

The shot is like
one enormous boost of crystal meth. Our stride almost doubles. We boom down the alley, cut across
a couple of backyards, dash down a side street and keep right on screaming.

We hear the roar
of a car engine, screaming siren, and know at least one of the cops is pursuing us in the patrol
car.

"Where?" I gasp
frantically, as we turn a corner. Morrison motions to the left. We pound up to a tall ce­dar
fence. Morrison grabs the top and vaults over. I do the same, or try to. Get over but fall on my
ass, damn near becoming a boy soprano on the top board.

Morrison yanks me
to my feet and we run around some fat bastard's swimming pool. We know it belongs to a fat
bastard because the fat bastard is in the pool on a black inner tube and he yells something angry
at us as we pound by him. We got no time to pay him much attention. Morrison trips over a lawn
chair and goes sprawling.

I'm halfway across
the guy's backyard when a little poodle the size of a good spit comes running out and bites the
shit out of my right leg. Off guard, I end up plowing into a concrete birdbath and wind up
wrapped around the birdbath with this fucking dog attached to my leg like some kind of crazy
fucking flag.

I try to kick the
frigging dog loose and get bit about four times in the process.

Try to reach down
and deck the little shit with my fist and almost lose the fingers part of my hand.

"You leave my dog
alone!!
You... you... you punk!"
screams the fat guy in the pool.
"Kill him, Snappy!
Kill him!"

Morrison thunders
up and the dog turns to attack him. Guess the frigging poodle underestimates Morri­son's speed
because Morrison runs right over the silly son of a bitch. His foot smashes down on the dog's
back and damn near pushes the frigging beast right into the ground.